NOTE: Bad, bad me…I didn't update for almost 2 months! I was loaded with school word. Don't worry….starting this week, I'll try to update more…since this story is nearly finish by the way. I think this chapter is not very good, but pls. tell me what you think.
Chapter 10: Finding VFD
Violet B. …
It was early Monday morning. The air was more chilly than usual, and ever since last night, the sky was a bit darker than usual. I was expecting rain all night, but it never came. I thought it was probably just cloudy.
As usual every morning, I was sitting on the dining table working on my latest invention. Sunny was singing her own made up song and verses while waiting for her waffles to be cooked. My brother was off to get the newspaper. I frowned down at my tools.
Ever since he saw "Isadora" in the fair, he spent most of his time outside. For almost the whole day yesterday, we asked around town for 3 identical children. Unfortunately, none of the information we gathered were useful. It was not a big town, and the excitement of the fun fair disappeared like a bubble. The worst part was no one seemed willing to help. It must be a pretty small town. Eventually, we were on the verge of giving up.
But my brother wasn't. He woke up very early this morning to fetch the newspaper and continued asking the people of the Small Town (as it was probably called).
Sunny carefully placed the waffles on three plates and put them on the table.
"Breakfast!" she said cheerfully. Suddenly, the trailer door burst open. Klaus almost collapsed when he stepped inside.
"What did you do now Klaus?" I asked my jaw dropping. From the way he looked, he seemed to have run a 10-mile-long road.
"Violet…Sunny…I've…found…something…" he panted. I stood up and took the newspaper he had in his hands. I opened it to the front page. Sunny peeked into it from my side. My eyes widened as I read the headline's title.
Blazing VFD (Home for Orphans)
"It says that one of its many buildings burnt to the ground last night when all the children were sitting inside," Klaus said urgently.
"But it also says no one was hurt," I said with a shaky voice. VFD (Home for Orphans)? We never heard of it, but yet, how can we miss it?
" 'Victor Ferdinand's Dwellings for Orphans's auditorium burnt last night during an orphanage activity. During that time, all VFD's orphans were situated in that aforementioned building.' This is obviously Esme Squalor's doing. But if we never found the building, needless to say heard of it, how could Esme find it?" I asked my brother.
"Not in maps," Sunny piped. She was right. We bought countless maps of the town and its surrounding area yesterday, yet we never found an orphanage.
Klaus fetched the stack of maps from a nearby shelf. He quickly looked through each of them as I finished reading the article out loud.
"All of these maps are no earlier than 2 years old. The remnants of the real VFD could have easily erased the trace of the orphanage from any map ever made. VFD might be weak during that time, but they managed to mind wiped the Quagmires, and hid them from the world. They could do anything." Even if I want to deny it, my brother was right. VFD could do a lot of things we have no idea of.
"But how did Esme find it?" The question wouldn't linger off my head.
"I don't know. But whatever the reason may be, she knows where the Quagmires are and she wouldn't stop at nothing until she disposed of them…and us. "
I looked down to the news headline again. "We need to get to them," I muttered.
The sentence seemed to affect Klaus the most. "I agree. Now that we found the place, we'll get to them." His determination drowned out the fear and misery I know he was feeling. With a grin, I nodded in agreement. "Well, what are we waiting for?"
Sunny grinned back, showing all of her sharp teeth. "Let's go!"
"Are you sure we're here?" I jammed the break of the trailer hard. We had spent the last half an hour traveling to the orphanage, based on the information we gathered from the town's people. It was much farther than we thought.
"Let me see." Klaus stood up from his chair and stepped outside. I went to Sunny and put her down from the table.
"Klaus? What's taking you so long?" So, I followed him outside. The bright sun rays shone into my eyes. It took me a few seconds before I could get used to the bright light. What I saw after that made my jaw drop. It was the biggest building-filled area I've ever seen since I arrived in the Small Town. It was surrounded by woods and a small winding stream was flowing beside it. The only way one could get there was through the path we took. There were around 7 buildings all in all. 3 of them were long, 4-storeyed, and identical. One was dome shaped and the other three were tall buildings. They looked like dormitories to me. A high, marble wall surrounded the whole are. The entrance was an archway, not very different from Prufrock Prep's. But instead of Memento Mori, it said
"Seek a home, look ahead." It was a simple motto, yet it was different from the others I've seen…not to mention strange. But above the tiny capital letters that spelled the motto lie the words that despite the commonness, hid a lot of secrets… including our friends.
Victor Ferdinand's Dwellings for Orphans
(Local Orphanage)
"We're here," Klaus muttered. Sunny ran after us and had the same surprised expression. From a distant, my siblings and I could see a small amount of black ashes rising from the ground. It was probably the burnt down auditorium.
But before I take a step toward the large marble archway, my brother grabbed my arm.
"Are we just going to go in there and find them?" he asked uncertainly.
I took a moment to think before I shook my head, "For all we know these could all be traps."
"What do you suggest?"
"Disguises." Klaus and I looked down at our youngest sibling. She was pointing towards the trailer. Her idea was not bad at all.
A few minutes later, my siblings and I found ourselves in the oldest, filthiest disguises we've ever seen. We found all of them in one of Kit's old trunks.
Klaus was wearing a fading blue baseball cap that hid his brown hair and his glasses were nowhere to be seen. This fact made him squint.
Sunny was wearing a big wool hat with 2 fake braids hanging from it, concealing her short blonde locks. She didn't look too happy about it.
I was wearing a dirty-blonde wig that reached just above my waste. It was itchy, but it would have to do.
"Are you sure this would work?" Klaus asked Sunny.
"Maybe," she replied doubtfully.
We approached the compound's archway entrance with great anxiety and dread. What could happen once we're inside?
An alerted guard questioned us before entering. With surprising acting skills (that even I didn't know I could do), we addressed ourselves as 3 orphans looking for a home. The guard looked at us with kind and pitying eyes. I was glad there were still people like him left in this world. He let us in.
On our way, we passed the burnt ruins of a building surrounded by people trying to clean the place from soot and ashes.
We were guided to the orphanage's main office into the Orphanage's administrator's office. The office was spacious and clean. Portraits of previous administrators hang all around, with the dates of their reign under each. Klaus noticed something queer about each portrait.
"Each of these pictures contains the VFD insignia, Violet. Well, every one of them except of this one," Klaus squinted at each portrait intently, paying very close attention to the least old of them all. "Hey, the one that doesn't have any is the present administrator's portrait. That's odd," he added.
"Name change!" Sunny exclaimed. I ran to where she was sitting, on the administrator's table, after I examined Klaus's discovery.
A collection of papers were scattered on the table. A waved my fake blonde over my shoulder and peered down on the one Sunny was pointing at. I raised the paper to my eyes.
Victor Ferdinand's Dwellings for Orphans request for orphanage's name to be changed.
"Klaus look at this," I called to my brother. He quickly walked towards me and looked over my shoulder. With knitted eyebrows, he took the crucial looking piece of paper from my hands.
" 'Due to the request of Victor Ferdinand's Dwellings for Orphans's previous owners, the orphanage's current name shall be changed to: Small Town's Home for Orphans. This new title shall be initiated in exactly 2 months after this letter is written, and also exactly 2 years after the previous owner requested the change.' Do you know what this means?" Klaus was waving the paper in front of his sisters' faces.
"That this place is not owned by VFD anymore," I muttered thoughtfully.
"Exactly! That is the same reason why the current administrator didn't have the VFD insignia on her portrait," Klaus concluded. Just as Klaus finished his sentence, the office door opened, causing Sunny to jump down from the table to a nearby chair.
A tall, official looking woman entered the room. Her light blonde hair was put up in a tight bun. The woman had sharp grey eyes, but there was no malice or cruelty reflected in them. In fact, there was a look of kindness. We quickly glanced at the portraits of the previous administrators; they all were frightening and strict-looking unlike the newest one of all (which I mentioned earlier).
The woman smiled warmly at us, showing us her pearly white teeth and sat down. She mentioned for Klaus and I to do the same on the chairs in front of her desk, which Sunny currently occupied.
"Hello, Welcome to VFD Orphanage, soon to be Small Town's Home for Orphans. My name is Janice Fletcher, the administrator. How are the 3 of you doing?"
"Fine," I replied shortly.
"What are your names?"
All three of us paused awkwardly. Could we tell her our real names? If we do, we may have to take out our disguises…and maybe VFD will find out. Or we could lie? That was bad. But the place was not owned by VFD anymore.
Klaus and I traded looks. Understanding passed between us.
He took off his cap which showed his, now, unruly brown hair. Then he put on his glasses. Sunny bit off the annoying wool hat from her head, not at all sad to get rid of it.
I sighed and slowly took off the wig (which was a relief by the way).
"I'm Violet Baudelaire. This is my brother, Klaus, and my sister, Sunny. Our parents died in a fire barely 3 years ago." We all looked at the woman for some reaction. Triumph for finally capturing us? Her true colors, maybe, you know, evil and cruelty, just like some of our previous guardians? Or smugness, perhaps?
But none of those were displayed on her face. In fact, she looked confused and surprised.
"Why are you wearing disguises? Oh wait…you said your name was Baudelaire?"
Klaus fidgeted on his chair. Sunny swallowed audibly. What did she just found out?
The woman opened the computer on her table and scanned through a few folders.
"Oh yes, of course. Just to let you know, some files here show that you were supposed to go to this orphanage were sent here 2 years ago. Yet, you didn't come. You only have come now. They said you ran away. Is that why you were wearing disguises?" Ms. Fletcher asked suspiciously. Her welcoming voice was replaced by suspicion, but not in a bad way.
"What!" I exclaimed.
"Who's 'they'?" Klaus questioned.
"The people who were planning to send you here." She said that like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The orphanage's previous owners, if I'm not mistaken, they were some kind of organization."
Klaus and I gaped at the information we just taken in. She consulted the computer again when we didn't say anything. "Oh yes, the file said that like the other 3 people sent here by the previous owners (the same year), you had no memory of your past. Which is from what I can see now, is not true." The woman looked slightly amazed.
"We did run away from them. They were called VFD and they sent our friends here, mind-wiped. We didn't want to end up like them, so we left."
I didn't know how that came out of my mouth. I wasn't meaning to tell her everything. But it just came out.
"Oh, so you know the Quagmire triplets. And you said 'mind-wiped'? That's amazing, and terrible." Janice Fletcher looked much more amazed. She was obviously surprised that 3 interesting children suddenly came to her orphanage and started telling her things she knew nothing about.
"That's why we're here, to find the Quagmire triplets." I didn't say it this time. Klaus did. He probably trusted the lady now, or else he wouldn't tell her that.
"So you're not orphans?"
"Yes, we are, but we only came here to find them and bring back their memories."
"Well, that's good news. Now, I understand. Those poor kids had to suffer for 2 years, I think I should—"
She didn't finish her sentence because in that moment, the office door opened. My siblings and I looked around and gasped.
NOTE: Is this a cliffhanger? It is, isn't it? Well, let's keep you readers hanging there shall we…hehe. You could all probably guesse what happened anyways. Well…what are you waiting for…click on that button below and review!